


when the stars collide

by ivorydice



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Healer Noctis Lucis Caelum, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Secret Relationship, Slice of Life, very brief suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24743083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorydice/pseuds/ivorydice
Summary: They say those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.Apparently the gods themselves are not exempt from this.The damn fools.Noctis, the healer prince of Lucis, growing up in Gralea.
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 20
Kudos: 185
Collections: Ardynoct DS





	when the stars collide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glorilian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glorilian/gifts).



> This was written for the gift/exchange event on the Ardynoct discord server.
> 
> Fun fact: I reworked this so many times because I thought it was getting far too long to handle, and it _still_ ended up being so much longer than what I'd intended lol. I actually really love this universe though, so I'm pretty tempted to return to this in some future one-shots or something.
> 
> Aaaaaand this fic wouldn't be possible without Glorilian's amazing prompts, DAMN YOU GLORY DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I AGONISED OVER THOSE PROMPTS, DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT WAS TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I WEPT??? Thank you for blessing us with your prompts lol, I hope you don't mind me mashing them all into one!
> 
> Huge, huge thank you to [quartzguts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzguts) for being my beta for this fic, you're a star <3

_  
night can drown out the light, can swallow us whole_  
 _but when stars collide_  
 _we'll set our hearts on fire, our hearts on fire._  
 _— No Matter What They Say | SVRCINA_  
  
  
  
  
  
They say those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  
  
Apparently the gods themselves are not exempt from this.  
  
The damn fools.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
 _Some years ago, after watching with delight as his brother’s false kingdom burned under the power of the infernian, Ardyn had learned of his so-called destiny to die by the hands of the gods’ new chosen king._ _  
__  
__He had turned his back on the draconian then, had refused to walk a supposedly predetermined path. He’d been used his whole life, discarded so easily, a mere puppet for the gods to toy with, and he had played into their hands like the fool he’d been. To hear they'd have a new toy, a new fool, had been an affront to everything Ardyn had sacrificed for them._ _  
__  
__He’d vowed to one day root out their false chosen and kill him for that, tear him apart piece by piece for the gods to watch on and lament. See how they liked it when their toys were broken._ _  
__  
__How amusing, then, for the two of them to find each other in life. Practically delivered to his very doorstep, as if the gods have no concern for their chosen's safety whatsoever._ _  
__  
__He’s but a boy, a child of eight years, with wide eyes, a sickly pallor to his cheeks, and chains around his ankles._ _  
__  
__Ardyn stares at them, at the metal glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights. “You chain children up in this land of yours?”_ _  
__  
__“Only to dissuade him from running,” Verstael says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “His spine was damaged in the attack. We were able to treat his injuries, but too much strenuous activity at once could set back his recovery. We don’t want that.”_ _  
__  
__“Hm.” Ardyn stares at the boy._ _  
__  
__“I brought you to him for a reason,” Verstael says. “I thought you would like to see him before he’s presented to the emperor.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn slants a glance at him. “Is he particularly special, then, this boy?”_ _  
__  
__“He’s the Prince of Lucis.”_ _  
__  
__“Is he?” Ardyn responds lightly, feigning ignorance, as if he would never recognise the eyes of a Caelum, that familiar dawn sky blue staring back at him with silent apprehension. “How curious. What is his name? Do you know?”_ _  
__  
__Verstael tuts, mutters under his breath, offended, acting as if he actually cares about anything other than his countless experiments and laboratory abominations. “I believe his name is Noctis. Some Lucian nonsense.”_ _  
__  
__“Noctis,” Ardyn repeats softly, testing it. He’s surprised they hadn’t named him Somnus just to truly rub salt in the wound. “Noctis Lucis Caelum.”_ _  
__  
__Sitting as still as a statue on the bed, Noctis, only a boy of eight and already in chains, swallows audibly. “Who are you?” he asks, his voice barely a croak. “Where’s my dad?”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn smiles. “Your father? Oh, I am dreadfully sorry, little one, but he isn’t here. As for us? Why, we are friends, of course. You needn’t worry about us.”_ _  
__  
__Noctis’s bottom lip trembles and those familiar eyes shine, but he raises his chin stubbornly and glares at them. Clearly not falling for any such trickery. A smart boy, this one. A false chosen, yes, an imposter—but smart._ _  
__  
__Somehow, for some damned reason, it’s a little reassuring._ _  
__  
__“I think you might enjoy getting to know this one,” Verstael says, his eyes on Noctis. He doesn’t see a boy, Ardyn knows. He sees potential experiments to further his own needs, he sees a thing he can use. He’d looked at Ardyn that way too._ _  
__  
__“Oh?” He can’t stand it when others presume to know how he’ll feel about something. If Verstael weren’t so useful himself then Ardyn would have disposed of him years ago. “And why is that?”_ _  
__  
__Verstael smiles at him, though it looks more like a sneer than anything else, twisting his face into something malicious. “You’ll see.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn clenches his jaw. “Will I, indeed?”_ _  
__  
__“Trust me,” Verstael chuckles, and there’s something about the look in his eyes now that leaves Ardyn uncomfortably alert. “You won’t want to ignore this one. He’s_ special _, aren’t you?”_ _  
__  
__Noctis doesn’t reply._ _  
__  
__Not that he needs to. Ardyn finds out soon enough._ _  
_  
_There was a very specific reason Iedolas and Verstael wanted the boy so eagerly that they went to such pains to abduct him. And once Noctis is able to move around more without risk of his injuries regressing, Ardyn discovers why._ _  
__  
__The boy can heal. He can touch the scourge-inflicted and pull the disease into his own body. He can_ heal _._ _  
__  
__The Chosen King indeed. A copycat. An imitation. A spit in Ardyn’s face._ _  
__  
__He watches it with a strange mixture of emotions, something unpleasant bubbling up in his chest. Noctis stands beside a patient’s bed in Verstael's laboratory, some middle-aged man halfway through the disease’s progress. Noctis looks scared, Ardyn notices, but his hands don’t shake when he touches that man’s face, and they don’t shake when the disease moves through him, through Noctis’s own fingers, rushing into his body as he lets out a little gasp._ _  
__  
__After, Noctis stumbles backwards, but he doesn’t fall, and still he doesn’t tremble. His chest rises and falls a little too quickly and his eyes are somewhat dazed, but that’s all._ _  
__  
__Ardyn watches the whole spectacle, with Verstael and Iedolas at his side. Neither one of them can contain their glee and excitement. It’s rather sickening to see it. Or annoying. Either one._ _  
__  
__“Marvellous,” Iedolas says, a mere breath, out of earshot of the boy. “And we will be able to make use of him? What of his Lucian gifts?”_ _  
__  
__“Regretfully, the marilith’s attack seems to have affected his other magical abilities,” Verstael says. “But his gift of healing seems to have remained intact. It’s everything our sources described it to be.”_ _  
__  
__“Simply marvellous,” Iedolas repeats. “The uses this boy could bring us—well, there are so many, aren’t there? So many.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn can imagine. He’s spent long enough around these people to take a guess. For Verstael, Noctis could be the perfect candidate to experiment on should he be allowed to take him in. And for Iedolas, Noctis could be a valuable asset to hold against Lucis, a human shield._ _  
__  
__Iedolas, still so obsessed with his petty war and conquering nations and the idea of raising his family name to the highest status he can. And Verstael, still so obsessed with his own experiments, with his journey to find the secret to immortality—as much as he likes to pretend otherwise._ _  
__  
__Neither one of them can see Noctis for what he truly is, or what he could be. A bomb waiting to explode if these inexperienced, little men should take him in._ _  
__  
__“He is still a child,” Verstael is saying, when Ardyn tunes back into their conversation. He almost sounds as if he cares, as if he has a heart in that chest of his. “Children require certain necessities. What shall we do with him?”_ _  
__  
__“I would like him to stay close to me,” Iedolas answers. “I can make good use of him.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn stares at Noctis, at the chains still wrapped around his ankles. There’s a longer chain attached to them, trailing along the floor like a snake, the handle firmly in Verstael’s grasp. As if he’s leading a dog around._ _  
__  
__Only eight years old and already he’s being used, and by men as well as gods. At least Ardyn had had some time to enjoy his own life before he’d fallen into the endless lies and trickery._ _  
__  
__“Allow me to take him in,” he hears himself say._ _  
__  
__Iedolas’s eyebrows raise. “You, Izunia? I can hardly imagine you with a child.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn quirks his lips. “It may surprise you that I do have some experience. There is_ much _I can teach him, Your Radiance, and this way he will be close to court and within your reach.”_ _  
__  
__Iedolas considers it, and then nods. “Very well. We shall give that a try, shall we?”_  
  
 _He’s simply curious, he tells himself. That’s all it is. And what better way to ensure this false chosen’s destruction than having him close by, where Ardyn can keep an eye on him?_ _  
__  
__It’s perfect, really. Keeping the gods’ precious little toy in captivity is a better scenario than he could have imagined. And as long as the boy remains in captivity, Ardyn can make sure he doesn’t bring everything down to ruins._  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
“Are you frightened of me?” Ardyn had asked once, when Noctis was eight years old and finding out Ardyn was his new guardian and his new home was the citadel in Gralea, far, far away from Lucis.  
  
Noctis said nothing, curled up on a too big chair in a too big room, a little lost prince, with his hands clenched against his legs and his eyes on the ground.  
  
“That’s quite all right,” Ardyn had told him. “Fear keeps you alert of danger. You would be a fool not to be frightened. Especially not of me.”  
  
Noctis glared at him then, lifting his head high, stubborn and brave despite it all. “Maybe you should be frightened of _me_ ,” he had murmured. While his hands shook and his voice trembled, he didn’t look away.  
  
Ardyn had smiled slowly, impressed. “Perhaps you are right.”  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
Of course he was right.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
“I’m gonna kill the emperor today,” Noctis says softly as he buttons up his shirt.  
  
Ardyn watches him from his place in the armchair by the windows, the morning’s newspaper already discarded onto his lap. There's a shaft of sunlight blazing through the glass, burning its way across his hand. It stings a little. “You say that every day,” he replies, flexing his fingers in the light.  
  
Noctis’s eyebrows go up. “I mean it.” He fiddles with the cuffs of his sleeves. “Today’s the day.”  
  
He says _that_ every day, too. “Of course.” Ardyn glances down at the newspaper in his lap, at the blazing headline and the accompanying picture of Noctis on the front page. An official photograph, of course, from the public relations department. Rarely does one find any sort of candid picture of Noctis, not with the way he’s kept mostly under lock and key.  
  
Ardyn lets the newspaper fall to the side as he rises to his feet. He approaches Noctis slowly, watching as he pulls on his black jacket, as he fixes the rest of his clothes. It’s an expensive outfit, tailored especially for him, with Lucian designs and decorations to remind everyone of his royal lineage. Iedolas has never been shy of letting the world know just who Noctis really is.  
  
Ardyn lets himself take it all in. He can’t say it looks terrible on him.  
  
“And why are you going to kill the emperor?” he says instead. He watches Noctis’s face carefully, looking for the slightest signs.  
  
Noctis merely rolls his eyes. “‘Cause he’s a dick.”  
  
Ardyn smiles, a genuine flash of amusement running through him. “The most heinous of crimes, of course.”  
  
“You should know, you’re so good at it.” Noctis flashes a smirk his way, then turns to his full length mirror, inspecting himself. “What do you think?”  
  
It still amazes Ardyn that Noctis can sometimes be so fretful of his appearance. He’s all lean muscle and grace thanks to the way they train often, and he keeps his hair fashionably styled, he keeps himself well groomed. He might hate Iedolas with a passion but he has always made sure to keep up appearances and it shows. Yet he still worries he doesn’t look presentable enough.  
  
Ardyn nods. "Good. A very fetching prince, indeed.”  
  
“Fetching, huh?” Noctis chuckles. He fiddles with his jacket buttons, runs his hands over the material. His smile fades slowly and he stares at Ardyn in the mirror. “He’s turning it into a parade.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“It’s _sick_. These people are ill. They aren’t entertainment.”  
  
“I _know_ , Noctis,” Ardyn sighs.  
  
And there, right there. There’s the sign he’s been looking for. A change in the air, a spike of energy, sharp and deadly, purple-dark and acidic on Ardyn’s tongue. It rises within Noctis like a dagger, a little wild and untamed.  
  
Noctis’s eyes have hardened and he turns to look at Ardyn properly. “I’m going to kill the emperor today,” he says again.  
  
He’s been saying that for years now. Ardyn huffs and rolls his eyes, taking those few extra steps forward. He grips at Noctis’s collar and straightens it for him. “You say that every day, and yet you never act on it. Why?”  
  
Noctis shrugs, his eyes lowering, hiding away again. He looks calmer now, but Ardyn can still feel that surge of darkness within him. It twists and roils. Small for now, but it will grow.  
  
He rests his hands on Noctis’s shoulders, lets his thumb brush upwards, whisper-soft, along the smooth skin of his throat. Noctis relaxes underneath him, tilts his head towards Ardyn’s hand.  
  
Ardyn stares at him for a moment, if only to drink in the sight of him. “Do try to hold off on killing the emperor, please. At least until tonight. After that, you can decide what to do.”  
  
Noctis frowns a little. “What’s tonight?”  
  
“You’ll find out.”  
  
Noctis sighs. “Sometimes I wonder whose side you’re on,” he says, and he turns back to the mirror. His eyes are dark as he looks at them both in the reflection. He doesn’t wonder, not really, and they both know he doesn’t. He just likes to hear Ardyn’s response.  
  
“Noctis, you wound me,” Ardyn chuckles anyway. He squeezes Noctis’s shoulders, lets his nose brush against that soft black hair, breathing in his scent. “You know fine well there is only one in this world who has my allegiance.” He lets his hands trail down, down, down, until he can grip at Noctis’s hips, pulling him back until he’s flush against Ardyn’s chest. “Just as there is only one who has yours.”  
  
Noctis lets out a slow breath. “Damn straight.”  
  
Ardyn chuckles. “So please,” he murmurs. “Have patience. For me.”  
  
Noctis presses his hands to Ardyn’s, lets their fingers tangle together. “I always do.”  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
Of course Noctis would end up being his ruin anyway.  
  
Of course Ardyn would end up being his.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
“We have a problem,” Noctis tells him a little later as he approaches Ardyn in the foyer, when the citadel is a flurry of workers preparing for the city’s parade. He stands close to him, moderately so, and Ardyn nearly smiles at the idea that he may be restraining himself from standing a little _too_ close.  
  
And judging by the slight raise in temperature in Noctis’s body, Ardyn has already long guessed that they have a problem brewing. “Oh?” he says anyway. “Whatever is the matter, Your Highness? How can I be of service to you?”  
  
Noctis glances at him, almost amused. “One of the minor lords suspects us. Well, he suspects me.”  
  
Ardyn raises his eyebrows. That certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “Pardon?”  
  
“Big guy, dark hair, with a beard.” Noctis glances around them, more curious than cautious, watching as a worker dashes from one doorway to another. “Middle aged, I think. He has a scar down his face, like a burn.”  
  
“Lord Bjorn,” Ardyn says. A minor lord, barely a noteworthy person of an even less noteworthy family within Niflheim. A bit of a coward too, but an ambitious man.  
  
Noctis nods. “Yeah, him. He’s—” here, he laughs, a breathy little thing, genuinely amused, but Ardyn listens carefully and without humour as he says, “He thinks I’m trying to seduce you. He’s accusing me of trying to curry favour with you in preparation of betraying the emperor.”  
  
“And just how has he come to this conclusion?” Ardyn frowns.  
  
There's a sound of crashing glass from another room, catching Noctis's attention for a moment, but it's only a few of the servants having a little accident. “Beats me. He watches me a lot, so maybe that’s how.”  
  
Ardyn stares at him. “He _watches_ you?” The scourge within him grows a little sharper before the words have even left his mouth, static-hiss-whispers in his head growing angry and restless. He shoves it back down.  
  
“Yeah,” Noctis side eyes him. “He might be making it up, though. Anyway, that’s not the problem. He propositioned me.”  
  
The scourge spikes again, a quick series of sharp jabs against his skin. “As in—”  
  
“Yeah,” Noctis cuts him off. “Said if I don’t... _entertain_ him, then he’ll go tattling to the emperor.”  
  
Whether Bjorn fabricated those accusations or not, a man that would stoop to such a level is not a man that can be trusted. This attempt might fail, Iedolas might not believe Noctis capable of seducing anyone, but Bjorn could try again with something else. He might snoop a little too close and learn a little too much.  
  
And more than that—how dare he put Noctis in such a position. How dare he make accusations to his face and proposition him and _watch_ him.  
  
“Never fret, dear Noctis,” Ardyn says eventually. “I’ll take care of it for you.”  
  
Noctis flashes him a smile. “My hero.”  
  
His hero, Ardyn snorts. Oh, how far they’ve come.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
 _“Shall I tell you the truth of it all?” Ardyn smiles—that terrible, terrible smile, scourge dripping from his eyes like tear trails down his waxen cheeks. “Shall I?”_ _  
__  
__His hand is a heavy force where it presses against Noctis’s chest, pinning him to the wall. It feels death-cold but it thrums with energy, a poison bubbling under his skin. Noctis can feel it, sense the way it spikes and crashes, unstable and chaotic, tidal waves rolling beneath Ardyn’s flesh and drowning him in the darkness of it._ _  
__  
__“I don’t understand,” Noctis gasps. He tries pushing at Ardyn, but Ardyn is solid and heavy and so much stronger than he is. “Why didn’t you come to me for help? How long have you been like this?”_ _  
__  
__“How long?” Ardyn laughs. A quiet sound, but it’s twisted and morphed, the scourge in him swirling with manic delight. “A long time.”_ _  
__  
__It shouldn’t feel like a betrayal, and yet somehow it does. Seven years and Ardyn had said nothing of this. Noctis had always wondered why he’d felt so strange to him. He must have been trying to keep the disease pushed down where Noctis wouldn’t be able to sense it within, but there had always been something about him._ _  
__  
__“I can help you,” Noctis says. “Let me help—”_ _  
__  
__“Do you think you can?” Ardyn smiles again. “Do you think you should?”_ _  
__  
__“It’s what I do, you know that. I’m meant—”_ _  
__  
__“To heal the people, yes,” Ardyn finishes. “To save them from disease with your god given gifts. Blessed be the healer prince of Lucis.”_ _  
__  
__Noctis shivers. Something rolls over his skin, thick and heavy as if it’s in the very air around them, a pulse of angerdarkhate, but it’s not in his own blood. It’s the scourge in Ardyn, spiking again, calling to the thing in Noctis’s own body._ _  
__  
__“I was once like you, my dear Noctis,” Ardyn says softly, his other hand coming up between them, his cold, cold fingers brushing down Noctis’s cheek, almost affectionately. He’d been warm before, earlier in the day. “Continue with this path, and you will one day be like me.”_ _  
__  
__Noctis freezes. There’s a denial on the tip of his tongue, nearly spilling out from his lips, but his heart hammers in his chest and renders him speechless. He’s seen all kinds of stages of the disease over the years. He’s treated all sorts of people._ _  
__  
__Not once has their affliction felt like this. A magnetic push and pull, almost tangible, alive. Beckoning him, a connection, a tie between them._ _  
__  
__He’s always felt something pulling him towards Ardyn no matter how much he’s ignored it over the years._ _  
__  
__Ardyn chuckles, his eyes bright, and not just from the glow in his pupils. “Yes, I think I’ll tell you. It’s time you know the truth.”_  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
It’s a bad day, Noctis decides.  
  
“Remember to smile, Your Highness,” Iedolas says quietly, curling a frail hand gently around Noctis’s shoulder. “You are our guest here. You must let the world see you as such lest they grow worried.”  
  
A guest, Noctis thinks. Niflheim’s guest. Emperor Aldercapt’s esteemed ward, sent to Gralea as a child by Lucis in an expression of peace and trust, a hopeful opportunity to one day bring their two countries to a permanent alliance. It was an honour to raise a prince of Lucis, Iedolas had addressed the public then. It spoke of their separate countries’ commitments to ending the war and finally bringing peace to Eos.  
  
If only the public knew the truth. That he’d been snatched away, not freely handed over.  
  
It’s almost revolting, the way Iedolas acts so civil towards him. He never treats him like the prisoner he really is. But he always has that looming threat of war hanging over them, with the potential to crush Lucis under his boot should he try hard enough. All Noctis has to do is step out of line and the agreement he’d talked Iedolas into five years ago would shatter. No more ceasefire between their countries.  
  
But Noctis has always played his part, and he’ll do so now.  
  
He smiles, holds his head high, stands tall and regal the way he was taught to. He waves his hand back at Gralea’s citizens waving at him from the crowd, at those marching along with the parade in the streets. Music blares from every direction, loud and cheerful, celebratory, a thumping drumbeat pounding throughout his blood and his chest. It grates on his every nerve, but he ignores it.  
  
He ignores the cameras everywhere, too. Some pointed at the parade, some pointed towards him and Iedolas and their entourage of guards, up on the plaza steps in front of Gralea’s citadel. It’s a worldwide broadcast, no doubt. Niflheim loves showing him off for all of Eos to see. Iedolas loves rubbing it in Lucis’ face that he still has Noctis in his captivity, even after all these years. There’s nothing they can do about it, after all. Any attempted attack against Niflheim will make them seem like monsters in the eyes of the public.  
  
“The sick will be arriving soon,” Iedolas murmurs. There's an eruption of cheers in the streets, banners being thrown into the air, and he smiles and waves his hand at the parade below them. “I trust you will do your duties, as expected?”  
  
“Of course,” Noctis says, just as quietly. A small tingle of dread coils itself inside his gut like a snake, cold and unpleasant. He doesn’t mind helping the sick—it’s what those particular gifts are for—but he can’t stand the way this man likes to make a spectacle of it. _See, look how gracious we are, forget our acts of war, look at how much we want to help the people._ It’s sickening.  
  
“Good,” Iedolas nods. “How fortunate I am to have you by my side, Your Highness. I dare say we make an excellent partnership.”  
  
An excellent partnership.  
  
As if they were in this together. As if Noctis had entered this way of life willingly, as if he hadn’t been stolen away as a child, injured and barely alive, his bodyguards ripped to pieces by that towering daemon, his own body nearly in half. As if his old world hadn’t ended in fire and blood and remained only blurry, fleeting memories that he’s still so desperate to hold onto.  
  
As if he belongs out here where it’s bitter cold and cruel, with the faces of his enemies surrounding him on every side.  
  
Noctis smiles at the crowd, but the _thing_ inside him bubbles and burns with anger, every blackened, tainted molecule in his blood thrumming with loathing. He can almost hear it, like a voice in his head, ghost-faint and misty, telling him to act, to kill this man beside him and be done with it already. Kill him here and now, for the whole world to see, expose his crimes and his secrets to the light of day, bring his empire down to ruins.  
  
A warmth shifts behind him, slightly to his right. Familiar.  
  
“Looking forward to today, then, Your Highness?” Ardyn says from behind him, calm and conversational. “I imagine some of these people have travelled far to see you. They certainly do for the Oracle of Tenebrae, or so I’ve heard.”  
  
Noctis swallows and glances back at him, meeting those piercing golden eyes. _Do not let it fuel your anger,_ Ardyn always tells him, as he’s telling him now with the simple quirk of an eyebrow. _Do not let it get the best of you. Be calm._  
  
The goddamn hypocrite. He’d felt Ardyn’s own anger that morning, that spike of loathing beneath the surface at the mere idea that someone else should have their eyes on Noctis.  
  
He’s right, though. This is not the time to let himself be consumed.  
  
“Of course I am,” Noctis says, and he breathes in deeply, swallows back his anger, lets it simmer down. He sees the moment Ardyn senses he’s calmer, and he has to fight back a more genuine smile this time. Iedolas is aware of them, of their every word and of their every move, and Noctis doesn’t need to give anyone else more ammunition against them. He still has to play his part.  
  
“It is an honour to have them travel so far and to have such faith in me,” Noctis says, and he’s not lying about that. He tilts his head at Iedolas, respectful and polite as expected of him. “Your Radiance is certainly gracious to give them refuge in the city. I appreciate that.”  
  
 _See? I’m calm, quit your worrying you damn mother hen,_ is what he means, eyeing Ardyn slyly out of the corners of his eyes, and there’s amusement in Ardyn’s gaze now, with a soft glow that makes Noctis think of twisted sheets and stolen breaths, of lips on his ribs, of hands against his skin.  
  
“We all have our parts to play so we may help those in need,” Iedolas chimes in, and he could almost be mistaken for being genuine, pressing his hand to Noctis’s shoulder again. There’s a spike of _darkhatedark_ from behind him, as there always is whenever someone lays a hand on Noctis, whenever someone gets a little too close, but it’s quickly squashed down, buried away where Noctis can no longer sense its pull.  
  
“Indeed, Your Radiance,” Ardyn says, a little stiffly, and Noctis fights back a smirk, turning to the crowd once more.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
Ardyn is full of darkness. Ardyn is full of hate.  
  
He’d hated Noctis, in the beginning, though in secret. Noctis had hated him too.  
  
He had hated Ardyn and Iedolas and Besithia, when he was an eight year old boy, scared and traumatised and homesick. He’d hated Ardyn’s smiles and his watchful eyes and his laughing voice whenever he spoke. He’d hated his endless lessons about anything and everything, from politics to history to _healing_.  
  
He had especially hated him on that one particular day. When he was fifteen, mindlessly charging into Ardyn’s living quarters, a rant already pouring from his lips—because he might be an asshole but he was the only one who would listen to Noctis—only to stop in his tracks at the sight of Ardyn’s face.  
  
 _Late stages of the disease_ , he’d noted, somewhere far away in the back of his head, where it sounded strangely cold and calculating like Besithia. Very late stages, the worst case he’d ever seen. _Severe risks of respiratory failure, bouts of psychosis, and grand mal seizures, restraints and sedatives a necessity at later stages, prognosis unclear, response to treatment unclear._  
  
Noctis had hated him for lying that day. For hiding his sickness from him and being someone he suddenly felt _concern_ for.  
  
Noctis had hated him for telling him the truth that day. For bringing his world crashing down around him with a twisted tale of the Crystal and the gods and a royal lineage forged in blood and lies.  
  
“Why do you think I took you under my wing?” Ardyn had said softly, ignoring Noctis’s own building anger and his teary eyes. He’d taken hold of Noctis’s chin and tilted his head, until it thudded back against the wall. Allowing him no escape. “We were fated to meet, you and I. We are tied together. Until we both end.”  
  
He had hated how, just like that, Ardyn became the only person in the world who could ever understand him.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
He can’t stand it when Iedolas makes a big show of this. He hates the cameras, the watchful crowds, he hates the empire’s most powerful eyeing him like he’s their favourite toy. This shouldn’t be a spectacle. It’s private, almost intimate even. It’s not a damn circus show.  
  
His patients don’t seem to mind. They’re so grateful to see him, he thinks, that everything else must seem so inconsequential. They ignore the sounds of dozens of camera shutters and the hushed murmurs of the nearby crowds, and they step under the canopy with him, all small, shaky smiles and reaching hands.  
  
Noctis focuses on that instead, on their hopeful eyes as he gently presses his fingers to their cheeks and _pulls_.  
  
They don’t know what the starscourge really is, but he does. Has for four long years now, ever since Ardyn had decided to educate him on the true horrors of it all. He pulls it into his body anyway, feels it burning a path across his skin, fever hot and sickening. He swallows it down like poison, lets it spill into him to join with the rest already lurking in his blood from previous victims, building and growing, latching onto him, thorns digging into his veins.  
  
It’s dizzying. It’s nauseating.  
  
He wonders if it was like this for Ardyn, a long time ago.  
  
“Oh, thank you,” the old man smiles at him, when it’s over. “Thank you, Your Highness, thank you, thank you—” he’s not given much time to say more, guards coming over to lead him away, making room for the next patient.  
  
Noctis watches after him, swallowing against the lump in his throat, his head swimming. At least it has some bright spots, this duty of his. Yeah, maybe he’s just adding to his own problems the more he heals, but he likes to know he can ease these people’s suffering. He likes to see the relieved smiles when they’re cured, the way they look at him as if he’s given them the world.  
  
 _Some world it’ll be if the gods have their way,_ he thinks, somewhere in the back of his head where it’s colder, where it’s a mess of static-screeches and razor blades against his brain.  
  
He looks out at the crowds and the news cameras. He looks at Iedolas and his men. So unawares, all of them.  
  
They would all be dead, these people. If Ardyn were to do as the draconian bid and spread the scourge across the lands for it to consume everything in its path, then these people would be dead.  
  
Maybe they still will be. Maybe Iedolas will tire of all this and decide he doesn’t like the ceasefire agreement Noctis had pulled him into in exchange for staying _here_ and doing _this_ , and maybe he’ll decide he wants to burn more towns and villages in his campaign for expanding his empire.  
  
Maybe the gods will tire of Noctis and Ardyn refusing to be everything they’re supposed to be. Maybe they’ll force their hands, or pull some other poor soul into this fight. Maybe they’ll trick Lucis into fighting them in the name of saving the world despite the cost of life.  
  
Noctis closes his hand into a fist, tight enough so his nails bite into the flesh of his palm. He tries to breathe through the pressure in his chest, through the screeching static in his ears, the way the world blurs and spins and fades away, leaving him alone with his rising anger.  
  
He could stop them all. He could burn them all to the ground.  
  
He feels a tug. A pull. Deep in his blood, the scourge rising up and shivering, trembling, a magnet being pulled to its other end, and Noctis blinks into focus. He finds he’s staring over at Ardyn and Iedolas and their group of guards standing some distance away, and, when he forces the haze back, he can see their faces. Iedolas looks angry. Unreadable to those who don’t know him, but Noctis can see it.  
  
Ardyn looks concerned, in that way of his. His lips pursed together a little, brows furrowed slightly.  
  
 _Focus_ , Ardyn would tell him, if they were close enough to speak. _The scourge can be a drug and the anger only makes the fall worse. Don’t let it consume you._  
  
Noctis holds that gaze and takes in a deep, slow breath through his nose, forcing the scourge back down. It really is a bad day, isn’t it, he chastises himself. He’s not usually so quick to anger, to fall into that spiralling pit.  
  
Maybe he’s healed too many people recently. Or maybe he’s just tired.  
  
And there are still more people to heal. He beckons a young woman forward, with a soft smile and reaching hands and gentle words of reassurance, and he lets everything else fall away, focusing instead on the bright hope in her eyes.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
When they’re finally finished with their little show, when the parade is over and the people are leaving, Iedolas stands close to him with a disapproving frown. “I will not have you glaring at me in such a public place, Noctis,” he murmurs. “You must realise by now that there is only so much I am willing to tolerate.”  
  
Noctis nods, clasping his hands together behind his back. He flexes his fingertips, just a little. He can feel the power of the armoury there, where his dagger is hidden away.  
  
He could pull it out now, so easily, the way Ardyn has shown him how to thousands of times. Yank it out, swing it fast, before anyone can stop him. Pierce this man’s heart, cut open his throat, anything.  
  
He glances up, meeting Ardyn’s eyes. Ardyn stares back, able to see right through him, of course, alert and ready and waiting. He might not approve of his actions should Noctis kill the emperor here and now, but he won’t stop him either.  
  
But he’d also asked him to wait. He’d asked Noctis to have patience.  
  
“You are not indispensable, and you would do well to remember that,” Iedolas says. “Disobey me, and I will kill you.”  
  
 _I will kill you, I will kill you, today is the day, I will kill you_ —a throb of pulsing-dark in his head, coiling down the sides of his neck, down his spine. His fingers tingle. Eleven years of being a prisoner and completely under this man’s heel and he could end it now, end it, _end it_ —  
  
Noctis flexes his fingers again, ready, _ready_ , but—  
  
Ardyn is still watching him.  
  
Damn it.  
  
“Yes, Your Radiance,” Noctis says, bows his head, and he watches as Iedolas leaves, walking back towards the citadel from within his circle of guards.  
  
Ardyn approaches then, stepping close enough so they can talk quietly, but not close enough for anyone to see them for what they are. Noctis can still feel the heat of him though, and he aches to reach out and touch.  
  
“You didn’t kill him,” Ardyn murmurs.  
  
Noctis hums.  
  
“Whatever happened to today being the day?”  
  
Ardyn happened, that’s what. Ardyn _always_ happens, and Noctis can almost hate him for it, for getting under his skin this way, the way he always has—except he doesn’t really have the capability of hating Ardyn anymore.  
  
The nerve of this man.  
  
He wonders if it’s healthy, to let Ardyn get to him the way he does, to have him burrowed so deep beneath his skin and in his bones that it’s almost as if he’s a part of Noctis and he’d feel lost without him there. Maybe it is unhealthy, but he's not sure what he'd do if Ardyn were to be taken away from him.  
  
“How are you feeling?” Ardyn murmurs.  
  
Noctis shrugs and rubs his fingers over his eyes. “I’m fine.”  
  
“No, you aren’t,” Ardyn says, and his voice is a soft rumble, like honey running through his bloodstream, brandy warming him during a snowstorm. Noctis shivers from it.  
  
They’re too close. They’re standing too close and they’re acting too familiar. Someone will see, and hell, he _wants_ someone to see, he wants Iedolas to see, he wants this whole goddamn world to know just who Ardyn belongs to and who _he_ belongs to—  
  
But that could cause problems.  
  
“Did you take care of Bjorn?” he asks.  
  
“I will,” Ardyn answers.  
  
He almost dreads to think just how he’ll do that. His head hurts too much for him to ask.  
  
“Go,” Ardyn says. His hand brushes against Noctis’s shoulder blade, the ghost of a touch, reassuring. “You need to rest. I’ll come see you later.”  
  
Noctis sighs and nods. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he says, and that answering smirk makes him feel a little better. “I mean it. If I can rein it in, then so can you.”  
  
Ardyn bows exaggeratedly, with a twirl of his hand and everything. "Of course, Your Highness."  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
 _“So why am I like this?” Noctis asks. His voice feels rough, as if the inside of his throat has been scrubbed raw with sandpaper. From the very top of Zegnautus Keep, the city below looks like a toy playset. He stares out at the buildings below them, at the tiny lights and the tiny cars, the even tinier people, little ants in an entirely different world from his, one Noctis could never hope to understand.  
  
_ _It's rather nice up here, away from everyone else. It's quiet and peaceful. Still._ _  
__  
__He’d been attempting to run away. From Ardyn, from Iedolas, from all the lies. From his life. But warping still isn’t his strong suit, no matter how much he trains, and he’d be breaking his pact with Iedolas if he left, leaving Lucis open and vulnerable to attack._ _  
__  
__So he’d stopped, without even making it out of the city. Not that he could ever outrun Ardyn, it seems. He’d certainly caught up with him easily enough, then pulled Noctis along just as quickly, in a series of warps, up and up and up, without stopping. The perks of apparently being thousands of years old and with fully developed Crystal magic. Not like Noctis’s stunted, broken magic._ _  
__  
__“What’s the point in giving me these powers?” he continues, a wave of bitterness crashing over him. His father had told him he was special. Blessed by the gods. He’d healed a man accidentally when he was seven, and he’d been told it was because he was_ blessed _by the_ gods _._ _  
__  
__This doesn’t feel like a blessing, he thinks. It feels like he’s being used. It feels like a curse._ _  
__  
__Ardyn walks along the precipice of the Keep, as if daring himself to see how far he can lean over the edge before he’ll fall. His face is normal again, his skin warm and clear of scourge, his eyes somewhat a little more human. No longer that diseased pallor from before. “If at first you don’t succeed,” he says playfully, but there’s a little bit of malice there in his voice too._ _  
__  
__Noctis winces. “Don’t.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn chuckles. It’s an empty sound. “You asked.”_ _  
__  
__Noctis stares at a billboard, off to the right, some streets over. Some ad for a new movie coming out soon, not that he watches a lot of those. He looks down over the edge, where his legs are dangling from his sitting position. The drop is high. Too high to survive, with nothing but metal structures and buildings beneath them._ _  
__  
__He half-wonders what would happen if he just let himself fall. Would he die? Would those asshole gods stop him or bring him back to life? Would they just find another person to bless, to bestow their gifts upon and lie to and use the way they’d done to him and to Ardyn?_ _  
__  
__Would Ardyn save him?_ _  
__  
__Noctis looks up at him. Ardyn’s staring out at the city now, at the snow covered mountains beyond, at the cold dark night. “I hate this country,” he mutters, almost to himself. He seems a little more open now that his secrets have spilled from his lips and destroyed Noctis’s world. “I hate its wretched weather. And it’s not at all pleasant to look at.”_ _  
__  
__No, Noctis doesn’t particularly like it either. He misses Insomnia, even as distant and faded as the memory is now. He misses home._ _  
__  
__Maybe Ardyn misses home too._ _  
__  
__“I don’t want to kill you,” Noctis finds himself saying, his voice barely his own, soft, stolen away on the breeze, but Ardyn hears it anyway. He stills, his face freezes._ _  
__  
__“No?” he replies, side eyeing Noctis now._ _  
__  
__It’s true. The more he thinks about it, the more he knows it’s true. He doesn’t care about the gods and about their bullshit destiny. He does care about being lied to and manipulated, though. He cares about the potential collateral damage if Bahamut has his way._ _  
__  
__He cares about the damage already dealt._ _  
__  
__“No,” Noctis says._ _  
__  
__“And what about the gods? They have a destiny for you.”_ _  
__  
__“Fuck the gods.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn tilts his head, all predatory and dangerous as he turns, no longer that dismissive, easy-going, harmless chancellor he’s posed as for all these years. Noctis can see him for who he is now, can sense the crackle of his Armiger lurking at the tips of his fingers. “And what if I want to kill you?”_ _  
__  
__Noctis forces himself not to look away. “I don’t think you do.”_ _  
__  
__“No?”_ _  
__  
__“Or you’d have done it by now.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn smirks. “Perhaps I’m simply biding my time.”_ _  
__  
__“Maybe,” Noctis says. “Or maybe you can’t bring yourself to kill someone who’s been just as fucked over by the gods as you have.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn’s smile slowly falls from his face._ _  
__  
__He feels emboldened, spurred on by the memories of Ardyn whispering gleeful threats into his ear that he’ll bring Noctis to ruin for being a false-chosen. He’s had all this time to do that, he’s had seven years to do whatever he wants to Noctis, to destroy him, to ruin him, and yet he hasn’t._ _  
__  
__“Maybe you know,” he continues, “that once you kill me, there’ll be no one else in the world who can understand you the way I can. There’ll be no one else in the world who knows the truth.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn stares at him in silence for a very long time. His eyes look dark out here, under the night sky, but they pierce through Noctis as if he can see right through him. Maybe he can. And maybe Noctis can see right through him too._ _  
__  
__Finally, Ardyn smiles again. “An interesting theory,” he says, and he turns back to the view in front of them._  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
Ardyn finds him easily enough. A little too easily, in fact, a little too boring. These Niflheim lords and generals and busybodies all think they’re so indestructible and sly and clever as they scheme and plot. They always think they’re untouchable, they think they’re dangerous. They never seem to realise true danger lurks on every corner and it wears Ardyn’s face.  
  
And it’s funny, how these seemingly indestructible, clever men always end up the same. Sobbing and screaming and begging for their lives.  
  
Ardyn has a tight hold of Bjorn, his fist in his clothes, dangling him over the edge of Zegnautus Keep. “A little birdie told me you have been propositioning the Prince of Lucis,” he says, softly, easygoing, in the same tone he’d ask a guest if they would like a glass of wine. He finds it always unnerves people, that tone, especially when he lets them see his face. When he lets his skin grow cold and his eyes burn and leak. “Is that true, my lord?”  
  
“No,” Bjorn chokes out, shaking his head. He swallows on a sob, and it’s a broken, pathetic little noise. “I swear, it’s not true!”  
  
Ardyn hums and smiles, flashes his teeth at him. “Somehow, I don’t quite believe you.”  
  
“Please—”  
  
“I heard you have been threatening him,” Ardyn cuts him off gently. “You would have him unwillingly climb into your bed to keep your tongue silent, is that the way of it? My lord?”  
  
“I never meant any trouble,” Bjorn gasps. “Please, I’m sorry!”  
  
“Are you? Again, I don’t believe you.”  
  
“It was just—” Bjorn moans as he dangles in thin air, the city far, far below, a certain death waiting for him down there with wide arms and open jaws. “It was just—it didn’t mean anything! It was merely a joke, I assure you!”  
  
Ardyn pulls Bjorn closer, letting him get a good, close look. “I took Noctis into my care when he was but a child, you know,” he murmurs. “Why, I practically raised him. So I don’t take threats to his well being or dignity too kindly. You understand that, don’t you?”  
  
Bjorn nods desperately. “Yes, sir, I do. Of course I do. It won’t happen again, I promise.” He’s still trembling, holding onto Ardyn’s wrist for dear life, a shred of hope in his eyes that he might yet walk away from this.  
  
How unfortunate for him that Ardyn had brought him up here with every intention of taking his life. With every intention of throwing him from the top of this Keep, of watching him fall and fall and fall, content with the knowledge that he was discarded with, that his poisonous tongue could spread no lies, that this filth could proposition and _watch_ Noctis no longer.  
  
How sweet that would be. He feels it, the need for it, running through his skin, up and down his body in electric-ice-sharp trails, hisses in his brain, urging him on.  
  
Except—  
  
Noctis had shown self-restraint today. He always showed self-restraint, no matter how often he said he wanted to kill the emperor, no matter how often his anger and the disease tried to drag him down a dark path, again and again. What sort of example would Ardyn be setting if he couldn’t control his own temper while he refused to let Noctis act on his?  
  
That, and he can already imagine the glow of disappointment in his eyes. The concern and the fear that Ardyn was slipping away from him. The fear of getting left behind, of being alone in the world.  
  
“Goodness,” Ardyn mutters to himself, pressing his free hand to his head. He smiles at Bjorn. “I’m afraid I’ve become soft in my old age, can you imagine that?”  
  
Ardyn swings him away from the ledge, tossing him back down onto the roof of the Keep. Bjorn lands with a heavy thud and a series of choked sobs, forehead to the metal, curled up in a ball as he cries.  
  
He can’t stand it when they cry.  
  
“I'm giving you one chance,” he says. “If you so much as breathe near the prince after this, then you will soon find yourself _begging_ me to release you from this world.”  
  
Ardyn leaves him there, shaking and sobbing, leaving him to find his own way back down to the city. He wonders if Bjorn will go babbling about this to others, if he’ll tell the other lords and the generals and the emperor of Ardyn’s strength and of his monstrous face. Of where his loyalties lie.  
  
Doubtful. He’d only accomplish in making himself seem like a lunatic, and wouldn’t that serve him right.  
  
Not that it matters anyway. These men are inconsequential, meaningless, they're nothing to him, and there isn't a single thing they could do to tear him down if they tried.   
  
There’s only one man in this world who can bring him to his knees. The only one who ever could.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
 _“What have you done to me,” Ardyn hisses, his pupils daemon-bright and his face cold and ashen. His eyes leak black ink, it crawls through his cheeks and down his throat and along his hands. The anger pulses and crashes, so strongly it’ll burst through Ardyn's skin if it beats against him any harder, and Noctis nearly loses his breath at the intensity of it, at the way it tries to draw him in closer._ _  
__  
__“I should kill you here and now,” Ardyn snarls, with a hand around Noctis’s throat, but he doesn’t squeeze. “I should be done with you.”_ _  
__  
__Noctis isn’t scared. He’s had three years to get used to Ardyn’s darkness. He’s had ten years to realise that, no matter how much or what he threatens him with, Ardyn can never truly bring himself to hurt Noctis._ _  
__  
__He wonders when Ardyn will realise that too._ _  
__  
__“Maybe you should,” Noctis smirks. He presses his hand to Ardyn’s chest, to his pounding heartbeat, ignores the angry snarl he gets in return. He lets his magic pull at the scourge in Ardyn, only teasing at it instead of pulling it out of him. “But you won’t.”_ _  
__  
__Ardyn sneers. “No?”_ _  
__  
__“No,” Noctis says simply. “You need me too much to let me go.”_  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
 _Damn you, Noctis._  
  
  
~♚~  
  
 _  
He’s supposed to hate this false-king, he thinks, as he watches Noctis choking on the scourge._ _  
__  
__He’s supposed to kill this false-king, he thinks. This false-king is supposed to kill him.  
  
Ardyn watches, silent, as Noctis curls into himself on the bathroom floor, in pain and hurting, _hurting. _  
__  
__He had thought he would enjoy it, back when he discovered Noctis could heal, all those years ago. He had thought he would enjoy watching the slow descent into corruption and destruction, he would enjoy watching the poison eating away at him from the inside as he descended into darkness and anger until the inevitable slip—and he thought he would enjoy seeing the gods’ new chosen become just like their old, discarded one. History repeating itself, a spit in the gods' faces, as if they have learned nothing, the perfect example of their hubris._ _  
__  
__Or maybe this was their intention all along. Maybe they’ve replaced Ardyn entirely. Not a new chosen king to save the light, but a new deliverer of darkness._ _  
__  
__Noctis chokes, a pained noise, ink-blackened hands covering his face as he rocks himself, and Ardyn knows this pain, he remembers it, the struggle of it, the burning and the razor-thorns scratching through him and the way it feels to drown in it all, the way the anger can rise and consume._ _  
__  
__And Ardyn watches him hurting, and he doesn’t enjoy it._ _  
__  
__If Noctis falls over that edge—then what? What of the gods’ chosen then? Let him suffer? Chain him up in darkness for thousands of years until he’s primed and ready for a_ new _chosen king, to be butchered like an animal as if his life means nothing? Are they so easy to be discarded, him and Noctis?_ _  
__  
__Ardyn hates them for this. The gods. And Noctis. He hates that Noctis can do this to him, bring up long buried memories and regrets and bitterness and make it all as fresh as if it happened yesterday._ _  
__  
__He’s supposed to kill this wretched man._ _  
__  
__Instead, he wraps his hands around Noctis’s wrists and pulls him close. His heartbeat is pounding under his fever hot skin, but Ardyn doesn’t let go. He does what he hasn’t done in a very long time._ _  
__  
__He pulls, he lets his magic reach out and wrap around the scourge within Noctis, pulling it up and out of him. It feels different. Not the pushing he’s done to others, not the deliberate infection. And not the healing of those long gone years. The scourge tries to resist him, so wrapped up in Noctis’s magic the way it is—_ _  
__  
__And he feels the brush of Noctis’s magic, tangling with his own, coming to meet him, trying to resist him. Pulling and pushing, wild and out of Noctis's control._ _  
__  
__“Stop it, give it back!” Noctis hisses, hands latching onto Ardyn, his eyes nearly feral and tinged black with scourge. He tries to shake Ardyn loose, physically and magically, but Ardyn is stronger and so there’s no escape for him. “Stop it, Ardyn!”_ _  
__  
__He doesn’t. He takes the rest of the scourge and watches as it fades from Noctis’s body, as his eyes return to normal, to that familiar dawn sky blue. “There,” he says, a little out of breath. He can still feel the thread of healing magic and scourge wrapping around them, from where he holds onto Noctis’s wrists, a push-pull. It feels like being bound. “That should ease your suffering for now.”_ _  
__  
__And Noctis stares at him, a little too close, a little too breathless. “Thought you wanted me to suffer,” he says, quiet and strained._ _  
__  
__“I guess things change,” Ardyn answers, just as softly._ _  
__  
__When Noctis’s lips come crashing into his he thinks he should be surprised, but he’s not. They’re always so drawn to each other, after all, so why not in this way too?_ _  
__  
__  
_~♚~  
  
  
Noctis is already in Ardyn’s living quarters when he returns that night, looking small and lost in such a large room, sitting in silence on the floor with his back to the edge of the bed, a knee to his chest, a hand pressed over his eyes. He can already make out the shadows growing along the tips of Noctis’s fingers, curling and crawling along his flesh. He can make out the tremors in Noctis’s shoulders.  
  
Ardyn sighs as he closes the door and locks it behind himself. He’d been expecting this.  
  
He approaches Noctis slowly, keeping his footsteps light. “You’re getting sick again,” he says and lowers himself to the floor beside him, pressing his own back to the bed.  
  
Noctis sighs and takes his hand away from his face. “Yeah.” He looks exhausted. Physically, mentally. Ardyn remembers all too well how draining the healing can be.  
  
“You will be pleased to know I took care of Lord Bjorn,” he says. He looks towards the floor to ceiling windows, off to his left, out at the view of Gralea beyond and the darkening sky. He half-wonders if that little fool is still on top of the Keep, sobbing and shaking. “He shan’t bother you again.”  
  
Noctis hums. “You killed him?”  
  
He says it so nonchalantly, Ardyn almost wishes that he had. “No,” he admits.  
  
“No?” Noctis sounds surprised. He looks surprised too, when Ardyn turns back to him. “What happened?”  
  
“The funniest thing,” Ardyn smiles at him. “I considered it, of course. I considered a thousand ways he could die. But, in the end, there was this damned voice in my head that wouldn’t allow me to do so.”  
  
Noctis snorts, then winces, pressing his hand to his forehead. “Yeah, that’s, uh—that’s called your _conscience_ , Ardyn.”  
  
“Is it?” Ardyn says. “How curious. It sounds an awful lot like you.”  
  
And there it is. That slight glow in Noctis’s eyes, the small tilt of his lips. He’s pleased. For all of the anger he holds towards everyone else in the world, he always seems so damn _pleased_ whenever Ardyn can fight back his own. At any sign that he’s less of the monster he used to be.  
  
They’re quiet for a moment, revelling in the silence and the stillness. Then Noctis takes a breath, lowers his gaze. “I didn’t kill the emperor today...” he says, chewing at his lip, and Ardyn finds himself staring— “I didn’t kill him because you didn’t want me to. I know I always say I’ll do it, and I _want_ to...but you always tell me not to. So I don’t.”  
  
Ardyn considers that, then smiles, amused. “Are you trying to say I’m _your_ conscience? Because, Noctis, _please_ , I am hardly the best person for that at all. Haven’t you learned anything—”  
  
“Shut up,” Noctis laughs, cutting him off, then he winces again.  
  
Ardyn falls silent, letting Noctis take a minute to breathe through his headache. He’s shaking next to Ardyn, minute tremors running through his body. His skin is throwing off heat waves now, far hotter than he was this morning. Healing those people today hadn't done him any favours.  
  
Noctis groans and presses his hand to his eyes again. His fingers look blacker, the scourge spreading further. Trying to consume him.  
  
Ardyn takes Noctis’s hands in his, pulling them close, and he ignores the feeble, half-hearted protests and attempts to pull away. “Shh,” he glances up at Noctis. “Let me help.”  
  
“You shouldn’t,” Noctis sighs, but he doesn’t resist any further as Ardyn uses that old, old magic and pulls the scourge away from him, uncoiling it from Noctis’s insides and pulling it to himself. The scourge rises up, eager, rushing to meet his own darkness, settling into his flesh and blood with ease.  
  
“I won’t allow you to kill the emperor,” Ardyn says softly, watching as the black taint begins to fade from Noctis’s fingertips, “because I refuse to let you fall into your darkness. Once you go down that path, the scourge won’t let you forget it.”  
  
“Ardyn—”  
  
“I _refuse_ to,” Ardyn cuts him off. “I won’t let it consume you, Noctis. I won’t let it take you away from me.”  
  
Noctis merely stares at him as the final threads of scourge recede, as Ardyn slackens his grip around his wrists.  
  
Then he huffs and rolls his eyes, his lips quirking. “God, you’re so stupid.”  
  
Ardyn chuckles. “How charming.”  
  
When Noctis moves towards him, reaching for him, Ardyn doesn’t refuse him. He can’t. He’s drawn to Noctis, always has been, and so he meets him halfway, lets their lips come together the way they always do, searching and urgent.  
  
He finds his hand moving for Noctis’s chest, smiling at the sharp intake of breath his touch earns him. He presses his palm to that pounding heartbeat, to the heat of Noctis’s body, settling down now that Ardyn has taken the scourge from him.  
  
He likes to feel that heartbeat. The gods had brought Noctis into this world just to slay him, but as long as his heart keeps beating in his chest, then that can never happen.  
  
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Noctis murmurs into his mouth. He grabs hold of Ardyn’s hand pressed over his chest, presses kisses along his jaw, his breath hot and heavy against Ardyn’s skin. “I’m here,” he says. “You’re here. You’ll never leave me. Right?”  
  
How could he _ever_ leave him? They’re bound, now and always.  
  
Noctis bites at his jaw, teeth gently nipping at his skin. “Say it. You’ll never leave me.”  
  
“Never,” Ardyn growls. He grabs Noctis and lifts him up, until he’s standing with him in his arms, Noctis’s legs wrapped around his waist, and he lets them both fall down onto the bed.  
  
Noctis stares up at him from the sheets, cheeks flushed, his lips parted on unsteady breaths, his hands clutching at Ardyn almost desperately. “Promise me,” he urges.  
  
“I promise,” Ardyn says.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
As if he ever would. As if he ever could.  
  
As if he could ever walk away from this, from Noctis underneath him, arching under Ardyn’s hands, his skin almost fever hot, broken little noises spilling from his lips as Ardyn moves inside him. Noctis’s nails scratch bloody trails down his back, and Ardyn’s teeth leave marks along Noctis’s neck, and it’s perfect like this, always like this, as if they’re on the verge of fighting, always clashing and straining against each other and towards each other, magnets on an unstoppable pull.  
  
Noctis sobs, like he always does, as they move, chasing that crescendo together, an inferno building and building, unbearable, thrumming beneath their skin. His fingers cling on tight to Ardyn's shoulders, and Noctis's magic seeps into him, snow cold and soft gold, searching out for the scourge lurking within, but he doesn’t pull it out, merely tugs at it, plays with it, letting their magic roll over each other so there isn’t a single place they aren’t touching.  
  
“Please,” Noctis says, like he always does, his eyes bright and shiny, peering up at Ardyn imploringly. “ _Please_.”  
  
And Ardyn takes pity on him, like he always does. Because only Ardyn can help him fall over that precipice, only Ardyn can push him until he breaks and then put him back together again afterwards. So he holds Noctis down, his wrists in Ardyn’s hands, heartbeat fluttering like a frantic bird beneath his grasp, and he swallows down Noctis’s cries as they race towards the edge together, as their inferno consumes them and they tumble and fall and there’s nothing but _them_ , only the two of them together in the world, and even the scourge is silent in Ardyn’s head.  
  
He wants to laugh at it all. He wonders if the gods had ever foreseen this outcome, if they’d ever predicted that their saviour would refuse them in favour of Ardyn. If they’d ever predicted Ardyn would turn away from everything for Noctis.  
  
“Maybe you should be frightened of _me_ ,” Noctis had said once, as a little lost prince.  
  
He had been right, of course. Noctis has always been destined to be his undoing.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
Later, they lie together, their bodies pliant and warm from another bout of lovemaking, the sheets a tangled mess around their legs. Noctis lies on his stomach, naked and exposed to the world, uncaring of the uncovered windows looking out at the city. His eyes are hooded and sleepy, gaze on Ardyn, a soft smile on his lips. He’s rather lovely like this.  
  
Ardyn remains on his side, his head propped up with one hand. With his other, he slowly trails his fingertips down Noctis’s scarred spine, revelling in the small, delighted shivers his touch induces.  
  
“Do you know how incredibly frustrating it is,” he says quietly, smiling slyly down at Noctis, “the way it can take years to make the right connections with the right people? To secure certain deals and acquire the right information and plant the right dominoes in just the right places?”  
  
Noctis frowns up at him, looking at Ardyn as if he’s gone insane. “The hell are you talking about now?”  
  
“It’s terribly frustrating, Noctis,” Ardyn continues. “To do all of that _and_ do it in such a way that remains inconspicuous and leaves no ties to myself whatsoever. I’ve always been good at playing this game, but I must say that I’ve managed to surprise even myself.”  
  
Noctis raises an eyebrow. “Was the sex that good? I know you tend to babble after, but can you at least try and make sense?”  
  
Ardyn finds himself chuckling. He leans over and swipes his tongue along the base of Noctis’s neck, where his skin is still a little damp from sweat, tasting salt and something sweet that’s simply _Noctis_.  
  
“It took far too long for my liking,” he says, and he delights in the way Noctis shivers under his breath, “but I do believe I finally have all of my dominoes in place.”  
  
Noctis groans softly. “Ardyn, please—”  
  
“You can have your freedom,” Ardyn cuts him off. Noctis stills beneath his hand, and Ardyn leans back again to peer down at his face. “I know our _esteemed_ emperor has kept you under his boot with threats of war. I know you have always feared his power over you. Well, little does he know his power is crumbling within his grasp.”  
  
Noctis pushes himself up onto his elbows, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I know you fear he’ll make a move on Lucis should you try and leave,” Ardyn answers. He smiles, slowly. “I simply took that power away from him. Shaky allegiances are detrimental to a man’s rulership, and of course it helps wonders that you’re a healer beloved by many the world over. If he makes the wrong move from now on, Iedolas could very well find his whole empire crashing down around him.”  
  
Noctis stares at him, astonished, his lips parted. Ardyn reaches out and thumbs at his bottom lip, chuckling softly when Noctis automatically plants a kiss to his skin. “What I am saying, dear Noctis,” Ardyn murmurs, “is that you are free to do whatever you want now. I have measures put in place to protect you and all that you hold dear, should you want it.”  
  
Noctis moves upwards, his lips meeting Ardyn’s, his hands on his cheeks. He pulls back just as quickly, peering into Ardyn’s eyes like he can find the secrets of the gods in there. “You’d do that?” he asks, breathless and soft and hopeful. “For me?”  
  
“I would,” Ardyn answers. “I have.”  
  
Noctis kisses him again, pressing him back down to the bed with a breathless laugh. “Will you come with me?”  
  
“As if you are capable of getting rid of me,” Ardyn chuckles. He quirks an eyebrow, lets his hands run up along the sides of Noctis’s body. “You have been incredibly patient. So what would you like to do, now that anything and everything is possible for you?”  
  
Noctis bites his lip and gives him a sly, slow smile, throwing his leg over Ardyn’s so he can straddle him. “I think,” he says, taking Ardyn’s hands and linking their fingers together, “I’d like to show you just how grateful I am for this. We can make plans tomorrow.”  
  
Ardyn hums. “No killing the emperor?”  
  
“Fuck the emperor,” Noctis says.  
  
Ardyn laughs and surges up to meet Noctis and to embrace him once more.  
  
He doesn’t care what the morning might bring. He doesn’t care for empires and kingdoms and crystals and destinies. As long as he can keep Noctis from being used and corrupted by those wretched gods and the cursed scourge, then he’s content with whatever life might throw his way.  
  
  
~♚~  
  
  
“If I could gift you one thing,” Ardyn had asked him once, low and quiet in Noctis’s ear, “anything in the world, what would it be?”  
  
Noctis had smirked, hadn’t even looked at him as he simply said, “Freedom.”  
  
He said it because it was funny. Because it was poetic. Because it was what he wanted. Because it’d make Ardyn laugh.  
  
Freedom from Niflheim and Iedolas. Freedom from the gods and the lies. Freedom from everything.  
  
Ardyn had chuckled, a warm breath running down the back of Noctis’s neck. “Freedom from me, dear Noctis?”  
  
“Nah,” Noctis had answered. “As if you’re getting shot of me that easily. We’re tied, remember? Until we both end.”  
  
Ardyn had laughed at that, delighted. “Indeed we are. Very well. Freedom you shall have.”  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [SVRCINA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPN3tWrn1RM) inspired me so much while writing for this fic, you should all listen to her music.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Much love! <33333
> 
> You can find me [here](https://ivorydice.tumblr.com/) at tumblr!


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